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Paris Blog: House Hunters International–Part II

(We left off last week with us narrowing it down to three houses from over a dozen…check out that post first if you’re just joining us)

Before we announce our selection, let’s recap the houses. After a lot of comparing pros and cons lists, we had narrowed it down to the following three:

House #1: The Eiffel Tower House: Easily within hitting distance of a baseball from the base of the Eiffel tower. While this apartment didn’t offer a view of the landmark – it did offer easy access to the surrounding area, and had a clean and bright interior.

House #2: Notre Dame House: This house was situated overlooking the Seine (the main river), with a mind-boggling view of Notre Dame. And while the two-story apartment did feature 2.5 baths and two full bedrooms, it was super-tight on storage space (and space in general).

House #3: The Renovated Duplex:This apartment was a two-story unit with tons of space – the exact opposite of the Notre Dame unit in almost every respect. It was finishing up major renovations and looked brand new. However, the neighborhood didn’t have a lot going for it (it wasn’t bad, just not very active).

So, which one did we choose as our home for the next 3-5 years?

The Winner: House #2: Notre Dame

We’ve been pretty surprised that only a handful of folks guessed house #2, and those that did – primarily did so because of some window pattern reflections seen in this post from two weeks ago. In some ways though, when it came to guessing, you were at a disadvantage for just how spectacular the view is. The photos make Notre Dame look much smaller and father away, when in reality, when you walk in our front door – it’s all you can see, just towering up. Everyone involved in our relocation process, from the gas repairman to the movers, simply walks to the window and stares. Really an unbelievable scene. Honestly, we’re not entirely sure how we lucked out.

However, what really sold us was the location and neighborhood. We spent quite a bit of time in all the neighborhoods over the course of our multiple trips back and forth in the spring. Morning, noon and night – trying to get a feel for them. And none of them seemed to match the energy. Sure, some of it is tourists – but once you got away a block or two, it translated into a more natural Paris scene (Saint Germain).

An additional (and extremely important) factor was how long it took to get to the airport. I’ll be travelling internationally sometimes weekly, and having to change trains multiple times really hurts at 6AM. In our case, we can get on a single express train about 200 yards away, and I can be at the airport in less than 35 minutes. It’s awesome. Oh, and the pool is only a 3 minute walk behind us, which is incredible looking.

Of course, the apartment is small, probably 60% of the space of the renovated duplex (Option #3), if not even smaller. But as the saying in real estate goes, it’s all about location. As we moved out of our place in DC, we actually didn’t know which house we’d have. Thus, we ended up selling virtually every piece of furniture we had (more on that later, The Girl’s Craigslist skills were unreal…I think we almost broke even). So with the reduced furniture, we got a lot more space. Of course, make no mistake – we donated, sold and threw away a TON of stuff. Truckloads of it.

But, we weren’t kidding when we said that trainers were an issue with space. I’m going to tighten up my trainer review process and get the non-reviewed ones out the door quicker. Because quite frankly, they just take up too much space (and a storage unit here is so darn expensive, trust us…we have one). Of course, some of the trainers are ones I’ve bought (CompuTrainer’s, Bushido, Kurt Kinetic), and others have longer lead times (PowerBeam pending final software suite).

And, our friends and family got the benefit of our book collection downsizing, though – we still kept a lot of the prime titles, which sorta fit into the built-in shelves:

But – thus far with being here a month (which seems crazy!), we absolutely love it. We couldn’t be happier in our location. We just got back from a nice walk around the Notre Dame island to grab some crepes, and virtually every night we’re out wandering around – enjoying the stream of street performers around Notre Dame. Below, a quick photo I just took from where I’m sitting writing this at my desk.

And, after a bit of ‘cleaning’, we’ve started to make the place look a bit better. Here’s what it looks like after some quality time at Ikea:

Again, still some work to do, especially in the arts, decoration and bike hanging department – but it’s a start. Today, our ‘art’ primarily consists of two aerohelmets hung up on a random hook:

Up next we’ll talk about how exactly you move into a Paris apartment, complete with a crazy time-lapse video of 96 boxes being moved in! Being on the 5th and 6th floors (top two floors), we lack an elevator beyond the 4th. They use some techniques unseen in the US – pretty cool and nuts. Except, you know, when a box falls off from five stories up…but more on that later.

Congratulations Ray, awesome house.A BIG WARNING THOUGH: the RER often takes 35 min to CDG but only if you are lucky. It also often goes at snail pace and takes up to 1h10 for this trip. So ALWAYS plan your transfer to the airport with a good margin…And don’t forget to give me a shout when you pass by Dubai…

Nice place. My choice would have been the same, plus the neighborhood is quite busy there, crepes shop just a minute away and I think its also around 3kms away from Lourve Museum I remember getting out from the metro station (express line from the airport) right in front of Notre Dame, so looking out of your house, will be on your left:)

Great choice! We might have chosen the same place if we were you. Last time me and my wife stayed in Paris we were at Hotel Esmeralda which had the same spectacular view of notre dame! Your apartment is right at the heart of Paris and a short walk from Shakespeare and Co in case you want to read english books :D Congrats!

Yes, I found one of them crawling trains back two weeks ago. Not a local/slow train, just an express train going slow. Sigh…

Hi Anon-

We haven’t yet, though we may swing by at some point. They also have various concerts and choruses that perform there too, which are published outside the gates. We’re pretty busy the next few weeks – but we see some later in the month that ought to do the trick!

It actually has a fair amount of built-in closet space (primarily in the master bedroom) – though, we continue to wish it had more. We bought a dresser for the bedroom, and all of the storage space cabinents under the TV as well.

Hi Matz-

I design infrastructure solutions for large organizations, including designing Lync (well, previously LCS, then OCS and now Lync) deployments. Additionally, the org I work uses Lync internally – so I love the CX600.

The place looks ah-mazing. And I loved the House Hunters aspect. It’s my favorite show aside from Wife Swap. Funny enough, I think this is actually located near to the hostel I stayed in when I first arrived in Paris. The BVJ. It’s just around the corner from a sandwich place that has a great sesame brie.

The view? I just assumed you were a Van Morrison fan.======Shammy [chamois] cleaning all the windows,Singing songs about Edith Piaf’s soul.And I hear blue strains of “no regredior”Across the street from Cathedral Notre Dame.

This house looks just like a palace form a fairy tale, the view at it during the night time is fascinating! I truly love this post because of the pictures that you’ve inserted to it! I can’t believe someone is lucky enough to live in such a place!

I am a new follower of your blog, which I discovered this week while looking for GPS watches review…. I now start to discover your personal story !! I just love your blog. Please keep one writing and welcome to France ! (though a bit late) I am myself a French guy living close to Geneva and just had the idea 2 weeks ago to start training for Sprint triathlon…. still 10 months to go before it, but what a nice challenge.

Haha, this post brings back good (bad) memories moving up to the 5th floor in Zürich with no lift. Moving in and out was a b—h. Even moving out, the worst part was not necessarily carrying the last bags down, but the fact that if you didn’t grab everything you would have to climb up again when you’re already exhausted.

Nice move but be carefull with the people. I am french and left Paris 6 month ago for Geneva. The pool behind your flat you speak about is not olympic size and overbusy. Best place to swim is the outdoor heated olympic size pool on Pont de Puteaux (west side near Neuilly) or maybe Keller Pool opposite side of Trocadero. Come around in Geneva in Spring, some nice col to discover by bike !!

My Paris Journey

Yup, that’s right, we’re packing up shop and moving over to the land of …. and of chocolate macaroons! Actually, rather, we’ve already packed up shop – over three weeks ago. The stuff is slowly plodding it’s way across the Atlantic (just off the coast of Newfoundland as of tonight).

One of the things we both really enjoy doing is going to u-pick farms and picking our own fruits and vegetables. In the past, we’ve primarily picked apples, blueberries, and strawberries. Given it’s fall (crazy, huh?), we figured it was time to go out and pick some apples.

Let’s make this clear up front – Paris is nowhere near a beach. The closest oceanesque body of water with sand is roughly 200 kilometers away – and the water there isn’t terribly warm either (the nice stuff is down south). So what do the Parisians do in the hot summer months (aside from close up shop and leave)? They truck in a boatload of sand and setup a beach right in the heart of Paris on the Seine.

Are you coming to Paris? Looking for places to swim, bike and run? Or just simply want to see where I swim/bike/run? Well, here’s the skinny on all my favorite training locations – complete with maps and downloadable routes.